


what we're made of

by towards



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 20:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3501713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards/pseuds/towards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He always knew he was made of harder stuff. He just never knew what it would cost them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what we're made of

He tried not to think about what would happen if things had been different. He tried hard, blocked the thought the snuck into his head now and again.

What if they had remained Thomas and William Maximoff, princes of the Mutant kingdom?

What if they had been given to the same family, been fortunate enough to be raised by parents who loved them.

What if they had simply been allowed to  _be_. Living with Wanda and The Vision as the family they were apparently created to be, blissfully, suburbanly ignorant of every terrible thing the world had been.

If  _he_  had been Thomas Kaplan and Billy had been William Shepherd.

The answer had unexpectedly been dropped on him one morning when they were fighting to save the Earth from yet another uprising. When he’d disregarded Billy’s shout ( _avengers don’t kill_ , he’d wanted to yell back,  _but maiming seems fair!_  but there hadn’t been time. _)_ to be gentler with the _armed gunmen_  ready to blow their heads off. Tommy Shepherd had not had an easy upbringing, he’d had guns pointed at him long before he’d ever thought to wear spandex, blood on his knuckles before he’d been told it was  _okay_  to go all out on Skrulls, and a criminal record that had bordered on ten pages long. He’d never had the chance to be coddled, to live in the world where superheroes never killed and people never stayed gone for long, he’d been out on the streets trying to find any excuse  _not_ to go home.

If things had been different, he would have been Billy. So focused on being the proper sort of hero that he had forgotten that there was no way to be a  _proper_  sort of villain. That dirty tricks weren’t dirty when you had no real moral code.

He hadn’t even had time to get behind him

(  _wasn’t fast enough_ )

or to cry out a warning

(  _wasn’t good enough )_

before the point of a dagger was through his brother’s throat. 

It had to be him with the Shepherds.

He knew it now. Watching Billy stagger and gasp — he’s there before his brother can fall, grabbing the man’s face. Forgetting that he’s a Young Avenger, forgetting that Avenger’s  _don’t kill_ until Billy gasps at him. it’s only then he relents, tearing off a shoulder instead of a head with kinetic force before he’s off and running, faster than he ever had before, for a hospital.

He’d known it the second he’d met Billy.

 When they’d locked eyes, when  _something_ had passed between them. He knew immediately that Billy was made of softer stuff, something that a lack of  _nuturing_  couldn’t take out of him. They’d never talked about it — he’d known his brother had wanted to know, so desperately, what his parents had been like but the topic had never been broached. The lack of effort to contact them had been enough of an indicator on how he felt on them, and their lack of effort to locate him had spoken volumes for how much they’d cared.

He’d known that he was meant to be the protector. That he was made of scrap iron and Billy was made of pure gold, pure, glittery and  _soft_. He’d known.

And he’d failed.

The funeral is everything his brother’s geeky little heart would have desired. There’s a statue erected of him, standing proud and heroic with that  _stupid_ cape fluttering out behind him.

He doesn’t cry. At least, not in front of anyone. He crumples into misery in his own time and throws himself into work. Teddy does too; they don’t talk about why.

 There’s a day dedicated to him. A comic series starts, trailing their adventures and making up _more_  when there wasn’t enough. Tommy keeps up with it when he has the time, writing illegible letters to the editor in his fury when they shoehorn in a breakup or an over dramatic event that his stupid idealistic brother would have never abided by, but there’s none of that now.   


He’s trying to do the heroing for  _two_  and the others say it’s probably going to kill him too.


End file.
